1. Field of the Invention
The field of the invention is that of time-accounting devices, and notably that of time-accounting devices for reckoning periods of parking regulated by rules. More precisely, the present invention relates to a snooper device that can be used to memorize data elements relating to the most recent instances of parking, notably for proof in the event of disputes.
The term "time-accounting device" refers to an apparatus constituted, for example, by a box, preferably portable, that is designed to be placed behind the windscreen of a vehicle and works in cooperation with a prepaid electronic ticket, for example a memory card, to decrement fee units, memorized in the card, according to the parking time. This type of device can be used to eliminate the need for fixed individual posts (of the pavement parking meter type) or meters used in common (of the type found at the entrances to parking lots). The user automatically pays the parking fees by introducing a prepaid memory card into its box. The boxes are generally sold, loaned or given out on hire by local authorities or their agents who sell parking units in the form of cards of a different type for each local authority. The validity of the parking can be verified by means of a display device on which there appear the various elements of information needed by the checking staff, for example the number of the parking zone selected by the user, a code identifying notably the type of card introduced by the user into the box and representing the town or city in which the parking is being done and, as the case may be, an information element indicating a state of infringement of the rules, and the number of fee units still available in the card. The memories of the cards may be either rewritable or irreversibly written.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A device such as this is described, for example, in the French patent No. 87/06776 filed on behalf of the SOCIETE INTERNATIONAL POUR L'INNOVATION. The device described is a box comprising means to manage the changing of cards inserted into the box. The box also has an internal clock that can be used to give the current time (hour+minute) and the current date, and to make a regular countdown of the fee units and to take account of periods during the day when parking does not have to be paid for.
The validity of the parking is checked by an agent who ascertains notably, by means of the data displayed on the box, that the device has been truly turned on, that the card inserted really corresponds to the city or town in which the parking is being done, that the electronic circuitry of the box has not been damaged or spuriously made, that all the fee units available to pay for the parking have not been used up and that the maximum parking time permitted has not been exceeded. If the checker sees that one of the criteria is not met, then he is entitled to lay a charge against the owner of the offending vehicle.
However, in cases where the paid parking accounting device, in this instance the box, has a dysfunction that does implicate its owner, or when the official who has laid the charge does not properly appreciate the information given by the box, there is no way, at present, for the owner of the vehicle to prove that he has not commited any offence.
An object of the present invention, notably, is to overcome this drawback of the prior art.